Saturday, November 1, 2008

way back machine

or the miracle of photo shop - ye olde photo shoppe essential elements, that is. The scanned photo was very dark and out of focus but this is almost as I remember the original having looked.

This painting is close to 40 years old and was done shortly after I switched from painting with acrylics and enamels to watercolor, my painting medium of choice ever since. I'd always wanted to work in oils and had been very attracted to the Flemish school as well as the Orientalist tendency to paint in layers of intensely rendered detail. Unfortunately (or not), it turned out I was allergic to oil paints and the thinners. I couldn't be in the same room with a bottle of turpentine without suffering hives and difficulty breathing - which didn't allow much space for getting creative at a time when inhalers and portable oxygen weren't available.

The colors here are too thick, especially on the dragons, but I hadn't yet learned the lighter touch that watercolor requires. Nevertheless, the image is still pretty neat and once again I can relate it to the times we face. Do the dragons represent bankers now hoarding the tax payers $700+ billion or are they hysterical right wing Republicans afraid of change?

I plan on staying on edge until the election is over and done and pray I won't be opening the emergency bottle Remy Martin on November 5th.

In the meantime, I'm working on another story. It's funny but once I start considering one all sorts of images, memories and moments I'd prefer not to remember come bubbling up to the surface and need to be sorted through in order to produce a series of drawings that add up to the baseline of a coherent story.

Remember getting home from a date hours late and having to present a reasonably episodic account of events to your mother? It's kind of like that.

I really enjoyed both the imagery and the color of both these paintings! It's amazing as they do not look quite so old at all, quite new actually! I really like the bright dragons, dragons being a love of mine...

I never stayed out late like you crazy kids. Yes, it's funny you telling us the age of the painting when I had the same impression as linda. Even if the technique didn't turn out the way you wanted - we're never happy with our stuff, are we? - I still think it looks groovy. :)

it's awesome to see something you painted so long ago. even then, you were good at detail. your youthful indescretion with color is endearing. the dragons perhaps represent loss of innocence (i love the dragon tongue curled around the angel's ankle).

randal - A long time ago an astute woman looked around at some paintings of mine and said, 'You're not an artist at all but an illustrator'. The problem for me was that I wasn't illustrating anything but a different way of seeing things which made me continue to see myself as an artist. Let people make their own stories was my attitude.

be - I'm glad you enjoy them.

sera - I went overboard with the paint but they were really fun to draw and yes, you're no doubt correct in your observation :-)

Great watercolor, Susan. If this is a first attempt at watercolors, I'd love to see what the second, third, and fourth attempts look like. As for the imagery it invoke, I like the banker metaphor, if only for the eggs they look to be hoarding. "Not these eggs," said the dragons, "we need them for CEO bonuses."

Good to see your earlier works and understand your story.....it’s amazing how many artists encounter some sort of restriction leading them in a different direction........to find talent along a different road. I look forward to hearing about that story soon! Best wishes